Suzanne Brockmann - Tall, Dark and Daring - The Admiral's Bride

He wanted her to leave. Zoe moved carefully toward the door. “I hope sleep is on that list.” She tried to sound lighthearted, tried to sound as if her entire world hadn’t just tilted on its axis.

He laughed quietly. “Yeah, well, sleep’s pretty low priority these days. If I don’t get to it tonight, there’s always tomorrow.”

She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Jake, that kiss—it wasn’t real. We just made it look real.”

He turned and gazed at her then, the expression in his eyes completely unreadable.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know that.”

“LET’S DO IT!” HARVARD SAID, but stopped short as he caught sight of Jake. “Admiral. You’re joining us for a run this morning, sir?”

“Do you have a problem with that, Senior Chief?”

“Well … no, of course not, sir.” Harvard didn’t say the word but . He didn’t have to. It was implied.

Jake held on to the side of the team’s beat-up station wagon for balance as he stretched the muscles in first one thigh and then the other. He kept his expression pleasant, his voice easygoing. “Say what you’re thinking, H. If we’re going to be a team, we can’t keep secrets from each other.”

“I guess I was thinking, sir, that if I were an Admiral, you wouldn’t find me volunteering for PT at oh-seven-hundred on a morning after I’d been out on a sneak and peek until oh- three -hundred.”

Jake looked at the faces of his men. And woman. Zoe was there, dressed in running gear that might as well have been painted on to her. He looked away from her, refusing to let himself think about last night. Refusing to think about that incredible kiss.

“Cowboy here was out as late as I was,” he pointed out. “Lucky and Wes, too. In fact, who here closed their eyes last night before oh-three-thirty?”

No one.

Jake smiled. “So like you said, Senior, let’s do it. I’m as ready as you are.”

Harvard looked at Cowboy, and Cowboy nodded, very slightly.

The message couldn’t have been more clear if he’d signaled with flags.

Don’t let the old man hurt himself.

Jeez.

Harvard set the pace, taking the road that led in a two-mile loop around the campground at an unchallenging jog.

And no one complained. In fact, they hung way back, letting Jake be way out ahead, up with Harvard.

Not a single one of ‘em thought Jake could keep up with them. Not even Billy or Mitch.

It would have been funny if it weren’t so damned sobering. If his team didn’t think he could keep up with them on a morning run, there wouldn’t be much they’d trust him to do.

But then Zoe broke free from where she’d been blocked in, in the back, kicking her pace until she’d moved up alongside Jake. She didn’t say a word. She just made a face, clearly scornful of the slow and steady pace. And then she lifted one eyebrow, her message again quite clear. Shall we?

Stop thinking of that kiss. God, he had to stop thinking about that kiss. Shall we run? she’d meant. As in run faster .

Jake nodded. Yeah. He turned and gave the senior chief his best-buddy smile. “Hey, H, how many times around this loop do you figure you’ll go?”

Harvard smiled back. He clearly liked Jake. But this wasn’t about being liked. “Oh, I figure twice’ll do it, sir.”

“And at this pace, that’ll take you, what? About forty minutes?”

“A little less, I think.”

“Dr. Lange and I are going to push it a little bit faster,” Jake said, “and a little bit farther. We’re going to do three loops in about two-thirds the time. Just let us know when you get back to camp.”

Zoe was ready, and as Jake jammed it into higher gear, she was right beside him.

“Hey!” he heard Harvard say as they left him in their dust. He put on a burst of speed, hustling to catch up. “Admiral, this isn’t necessary. You don’t need to prove anything here.”

“Obviously, I do.”

“We’re all tired this morning—”

“Speak for yourself. I’m an old man—I don’t need much sleep.”

Harvard looked pained. “I assure you, sir—”

“Save your breath, Senior. You’re going to need it if you want to keep up.” And Jake ran even faster.

ZOE STOOD UNDER THE campground shower and let the water stream onto her head.

She hadn’t run a race like that in a long time. And it had been a race. Three times around the KOA campground driveway. At least six miles. At top speed.

It had been some kind of macho showdown, and Jake had come out on top. He was a good runner—he held something back, something in reserve for the end of the race. While everyone else was working overtime to keep up the pace for that last quarter mile, Jake had pulled a sprint out of his back pocket.

She shut off the shower and toweled herself dry.

The other SEALs had tried valiantly to keep up with the admiral, but Harvard was the only one who’d stayed neck and neck.

And when it was over, Jake had been able to carry on a conversation. Bobby and Wes had been gasping for oxygen like fish on the deck of a boat, yet Jake had calmly given out orders, flashing that incredible smile of his at the pack of them.

At everyone but Zoe.

She slipped on her robe and wrapped her towel around her shoulders, using it to reach up and rub her wet hair as she headed toward the trailers.

The smile he’d sent in her direction had been self-conscious, and she knew he couldn’t so much as look at her without thinking about that kiss they’d shared last night.

He was obviously embarrassed. It was clear he didn’t know what to say to her, obvious that she’d overstepped the boundaries of propriety.

That was just perfect. She’d been trying to help, but all she’d done was make things awkward between them and …

Zoe had to laugh at herself—at her self-righteous attempt to justify what she’d done last night.

The truth was that she’d kissed Jake Robinson because she’d wanted to kiss Jake Robinson. Badly. She’d wanted to kiss him since she’d first found out about kissing, back in seventh grade.

She’d pushed too hard too fast, and now she was paying for it.

As she went up the steps to her private RV, she saw Jake standing with Bobby and Wes at the door to the main trailer.

He was watching her, but instead of holding her gaze, he looked away.

His message couldn’t have been more clear. This assignment was going to be neither easy nor fun for him. He’d prefer to keep whatever it was that had made him kiss her the way he had locked deep inside of him forever.

He was still in love with his wife, and a man like Jake Robinson would never cheat, not even on a memory.

LIEUTENANT LUCKY O’DONLON burst into the surveillance trailer as if his pants were on fire.

He skidded to a stop next to Bob Taylor and furiously whispered into the big enlisted man’s ear. Lucky was gone as quickly as he came in, and now it was Bobby’s turn to stand up.

Moving with the agile speed and grace of a ballet dancer, the six-feet-five-inch-tall, seemingly six-feet-wide SEAL pirouetted elegantly over to his swim buddy, Wes Skelly, and, glancing almost nervously at Jake, he leaned over and whispered something into Wes’s ear.

Another graceful leap and Bobby, too, was out the door.

Wes knocked all the papers from his file onto the floor in his haste to get to his feet. He scooped them up, tossed them on the table in random order and scurried toward Cowboy, Crash and Mitch.

As he spoke to them, his voice was too low for Jake to hear, but he gestured with his thumb toward the door, then scrambled after Bobby.